Philips 55PFL8008 - 3D, Sound and Conclusions

Summary

Our Score:

9

Philips 55PFL8008: 3D Performance

The sense of sharpness and detail that’s a feature of the 55PFL8008’s 2D performance translates admirably to 3D, doing an excellent job of reminding us of the active 3D system’s resolution benefit over its passive rival.

The TV’s extreme colour punch and brightness also pays off handsomely with 3D, enabling the images to avoid the rather dull, muted look witnessed on some active 3D sets.

There’s a bit of motion judder around unless you call in the Perfect Natural Motion processing. But you only need the lowest power level of this system to enjoy great improvements, and at this level the picture still looks natural and movie-like rather than processed and overly fluid.

The sense of depth in the 3D landscape is impressive too, thanks to the
set’s combination of rich contrast and extreme sharpness.

There
is still room for Philips too improve its 3D performance, though. First,
Philips’ 3D pictures continue to suffer a little more with crosstalk
ghosting noise than we’d ideally like. Second, due to the panel working
harder in 3D mode, there’s some evidence of backlight inconsistency in
the image’s corners when watching dark scenes.

Philips 55PFL8008: Sound Quality

Thanks to its use of rear-mounted woofers the Philips 55PFL8008 is a much better audio performer from a TV with such an exceptionally skinny body.

The soundstage spreads far beyond the TV frame, and is propelled by a surprisingly potent amount of raw power and volume. There’s even a passable amount of bass to increase the authenticity of action scenes.

The sound can still become a bit muddy under extreme duress, but this only happens if you’ve gone much louder than most households will probably be able to sustain.

Other things to consider

The dynamism and sharpness of the Philips 55PFL8008 make it a potentially awesome gaming display. So it’s slightly disappointing to find it suffering a higher than average input lag figure of around 60ms. That’s roughly double that of many flat TVs and is high enough to have a negative impact on your performance with games based around timing or response speed.

Should I buy a Philips 55PFL8008?

Unless you’re after a truly comprehensive smart TV offering or you’re a die-hard gamer, the Philips 55PFL8008 should definitely be sitting high on any high-end TV audition list. Its bodywork is drop-dead gorgeous and beautifully constructed, while its picture quality is nothing short of spectacular for most of the time, putting it comfortably in the same league as the Sony 55W905A and Samsung UE55F8000.

Verdict

Aside from not having as much online content as some rivals, the Philips 55PFL8008 is a premium TV in every way, capable of producing stellar picture quality and looking mighty fine while it’s doing it.

Dave

November 4, 2013, 9:23 am

gigi

November 29, 2013, 11:18 am

"The Philips 55PFL8008 also deserves major kudos for the sharpness of its HD pictures. The level of precision and detail it delivers is as high as we’ve ever seen from a non-4K TV"I have to strongly disagree. After testing side by side, with similar settings, 4 different 8008S sets with 8000 series Samungs (in shops), the Samsungs have a distinct and very easy to spot advantage regarding the level of detail. Still would not buy a Samsung yet as Philips does (for now at least) better motion handling.... As it turns out I am not sure what to upgrade my Philips 9664 with...

andyvan

November 29, 2013, 11:36 am

The fatal flaw there is 'in shops'. Most (pretty much all) use demo modes in shops that up all the detail and brightness settings to make them look better in those conditions. It's not representative of what you see when used using normal viewing settings.

gigi

November 29, 2013, 1:15 pm

That goes without saying, which is why in 2 of the instances I tested using Philips demos (the Hong Kong connection and Ultimate Sharpness). One instance was by running a HDMI splitter from a Panasonic DMP-BDT500, another running the same demos from a USB stick, the other 2 by simply watching the same shop demo running on both Philips and Samsung side by side. The results were similar.

andyvan

November 29, 2013, 1:35 pm

Fair enough. :D

Jan

March 26, 2014, 8:36 am

Having both an LG 50" Plasma TV and this Philips, the Philips knocks spots off the LG. The colours are far brighter and the overall picture is absolutely amazing. The ambilight feature is a revelation and makes watching TV a far more immersive experience. I would personally never return to Plasma.

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